The present invention relates to an apparatus for recording and/or reproducing a video signal on and/or from a recording medium and in particular to a video signal recording and/or reproducing apparatus which is capable of recording and/or reproducing both a high definition signal and a standard television signal such as an NTSC signal.
Standard television systems such as the NTSC system have been used as conventional television systems. Recently, a high definition picture has been made possible by improvements in television systems. A high definition television system (HDTV: high definition TV) having about twice as many scanning lines as a standard television system and a better picture quality has been remarkably improved and it has been proposed that broadcasting of this system will be started soon. Accordingly, it is expected that both a standard television system and a high definition television system will coexist in the future. It is preferable that a future video signal recording and/or reproducing apparatus such as a VTR (video tape recorder) or a VDP (video disk player) be capable of selectively recording and/or reproducing the video signals of both systems.
A VTR which records and/or reproduces a high definition television signal has been known as described in ITEJ Technical Report Vol. 14, No. 75, Dec. 19, 1990, pp. 7-13. Although this VTR is capable of recording and/or reproducing a band compressed signal such as a multiple sub-Nyquist sampling encoding (MUSE) signal for transmitting the high definition television signal as well as the high definition television signal, it is exclusively used for high definition television.
Although the prior art VTR deals with the high definition television signal and the MUSE signal, a method of recording and/or reproducing a standard television signal such as an NTSC system signal has never been considered.
Accordingly, a user must own separate VTRs for recording and/or reproducing both high definition and standard television system video signals. This is very inconvenient from the view point of operation and economy.